Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib Document

Tree of Knowledge and the Christmas Tree

Schmidt Number: S-3172

On-line since: 28th February, 2013

Tree of Knowledge and the Christmas Tree

Rudolf Steiner Archive Document

Lectures Section

Christmas Thoughts and Voices, “Bergkristall” by Stifter.
This is the fourth of thirteen lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in
December 1915 and January 1916. They were given at various cites in
Switzerland. The lecture series is entitled,
The Spiritual Union of Humanity through the Christ Impulse,
and was published in German as,
Die Geistige Vereinigung der Menschheit Durch den Christus-Impuls.

This is the fourth of thirteen lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in
December 1915 and January 1916. They were given at various cites in
Switzerland. The lecture series is entitled,
The Spiritual Union of Humanity through the Christ Impulse,
and was published in German as,
Die Geistige Vereinigung der Menschheit Durch den Christus-Impuls.

We present this lecture here with the kind permission of the
Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:Various e.Text Transcribers

Donated by the Los Angeles Steiner Library, this lecture has been made
available to everyone.

Basle 28th December, 1915

In the last
lecture we found that moral impulses are fundamental in human
nature. From the facts adduced, we tried to prove that a
foundation of morality and goodness lies at the bottom of the
human soul, and that really it has only been in the course of
evolution, in man's passage from incarnation to incarnation
that he has diverged from the original instinctive good
foundation and that thereby what is evil, wrong and immoral
has come into humanity.

If this be
so, we must really wonder that evil is possible, or that it
ever originated, and the question as to how evil became
possible in the course of evolution requires an answer. We
can only obtain a satisfactory reply by examining the
elementary moral instruction given to man in ancient
times.

The pupils of
the Mysteries whose highest ideal was gradually to penetrate
to full spiritual knowledge and experience were always
obliged to work from a moral foundation. In those places
where they worked in the right way according to the
Mysteries, man's moral nature was shown in a special way to
the pupils. Briefly, we may say: The pupils of the Mysteries
were shown that freewill can only be developed if a person is
in a position to go wrong in one of two directions; further,
that life can only run its course truly and favourably when
these two lines of opposition are considered as being like
the two sides of a balance, of which first one side and then
the other goes up and down. True balance only exists when the
crossbeam is horizontal. They were shown that it is
impossible to express the true attitude of man by saying;
this is right and that is wrong. It is only possible to gain
the true idea when the human being, standing in the centre of
the balance, can be swayed each moment of his life, now to
one side, now to the other, but he himself holds the correct
mean between the two.

Let us take
the virtues of which we have spoken: first — valour,
bravery. In this respect human nature may diverge on one side
to foolhardiness — that is, unbridled activity in the
world and the straining of the forces at one's disposal to
the utmost limit. Foolhardiness is one side; the opposite is
cowardice.

A person may
turn the scale in either of these directions. In the
Mysteries the pupils were shown that when a man degenerates
into foolhardiness he loses himself and lays aside his own
individuality and is crushed by the wheels of life. Life
tears him in pieces if he errs in this direction, but if, on
the other hand, he errs on the side of cowardice, he hardens
himself and tears himself away from his connection with
beings and objects. He then becomes a being shut up within
himself, who, as he cannot bring his deeds into harmony with
the whole, loses his connection with things. This was shown
to the pupils in respect to all that a man may do. He may
degenerate in such a way that he is torn in pieces, and
losing his own individuality is crushed by the objective
world; on the other hand, he may degenerate not merely in
courage, but also in every other respect in such a way that
he hardens within himself. Thus at the head of the moral code
in all the Mysteries there were written the significant
words: “Thou must find the mean,” so that through
thy deeds thou dost not lose thyself in the world, and that
the world also does not lose thee.

Those are the
two possible extremes into which man may fall. Either he may
be lost to the world, the world lays hold on him, and crushes
him, as is the case in foolhardiness; or the world may be
lost to him, because he hardens himself in his egoism, as is
the case in cowardice. In the Mysteries, the pupils were told
that goodness cannot merely be striven for as goodness
obtained once for all; rather does goodness come only through
man being continually able to strike out in two directions
like a pendulum and by his own inner power able to find the
balance, the mean between the two.

You have in
this all that will enable you to understand the freedom of
the will and the significance of reason and wisdom in human
action. If it were fitting for man always to observe the
eternal moral principles, he need only acquire these moral
principles and then he could go through life on a definite
line of march, as it were, but life is never like this.
Freedom in this consists rather in man's being always able to
err in one direction or another. But in this way the
possibility of evil arises. For what is evil? It is that
which originates when the human being is lost to the world,
or the world is lost to him. Goodness consists in avoiding
both these extremes. In the course of evolution, evil became
not only a possibility, but an actuality; for as man
journeyed from incarnation to incarnation, by his turning now
to one side and now to the other, he could not always find
the balance at once, and it was necessary for the
compensation to be karmically made at a future time. What man
cannot attain in one life, because he does not always find
the mean at once, he will attain gradually in the course of
evolution, by diverting his course now to one side, and then
being obliged, perhaps in the next life, to strike out again
in the opposite direction, and thus being about the
balance.

What I have
just told you was a golden rule in the ancient Mysteries. We
often find among the ancient philosophers echoes of the
principles taught in these Mysteries. Aristotle makes a
statement, when speaking of virtue, which we cannot
understand unless we know that what has just been said was an
old principle in the Mysteries which had been received by
Aristotle and embodied in his philosophy. He says: Virtue is
a human capacity or skill guided by reason and insight,
which, as regards man, holds the balance between the too-much
and the too-little. Aristotle here gives a definition of
virtue, the like of which no subsequent philosophy has
attained. But as Aristotle had the tradition from the
Mysteries, it was possible for him to give the precise
truth.

That is,
then, the happy mean, which must be found and followed if a
man is really to be virtuous, if moral power is to pulsate
through the world. We can now answer the Question as to why
morals should exist at all. For what happens when there is no
morality, when evil is done, and when the too-much or the
too-little takes place, when man is lost to the world by
being crushed, or when the world loses him? In each of these
cases something is always destroyed. Every evil or immoral
act is a process of destruction, and the moment man sees that
when he has done wrong he cannot do otherwise than destroy
something, in that moment a mighty influence for good has
awakened within him. It is especially the task of Spiritual
Science — which is really only just beginning its work
in the world — to show that all evil brings about a
destructive process, that it takes away from the world
something which is necessary. When in accordance with our
anthroposophical standpoint, we hold this principle, then
what we know about the nature of man leads us to a particular
interpretation of good and evil.

We know that
the sentient-soul was chiefly developed in the old Chaldean
or Egyptian epoch, the third post-Atlantean age. The people
of the present day have but little notion what this epoch of
development was prior to that time, for in external history
one can reach little further back than to the Egyptian age.
We know that the intellectual, or mind-soul, developed in the
fourth or Graeco-Latin age, and that now in our age we are
developing the consciousness or spiritual soul [Since
this lecture was given Dr. Steiner has changed the English term to
Consciousness Soul to Spiritual Soul. – Ed]
The spirit-self will only come into prominence in the sixth age of
Atlantean development.

Let us now
ask: How can the sentient-soul turn to one side or the other,
away from what is right? The sentient-soul is that quality in
man which enables him to perceive the objective world, to
take it into himself, to take part in it, not to pass through
the world ignorant of all the diversified objects it
contains, but to go through the world in such a way that he
comes into relationship with them. All this is brought about
by the sentient-soul. "we find one side to which man can
deviate with the sentient-soul when we enquire: What makes it
possible for man to enter into relationship with the
objective world? It is what may be called interest or
enthusiasm in different things, or devotion to them, and by
this word “interest” something is expressed which
in a moral sense is extremely important. It is much more
important that one should bear in mind the moral significance
of interest, than that one should devote oneself to thousands
of beautiful moral axioms which may be only paltry and
hypocritical. Let it be clearly understood, that our moral
impulses are in fact never better guided than when we take a
proper interest in objects and beings. In our last lecture,
we spoke in a deeper sense of love as an impulse and in such
a way that we cannot now be misunderstood if we say that the
usual, oft-repeated declamation, “love, love, and again
love” cannot replace the moral impulse contained in
what may be described by the word interest, or
enthusiasm.

Let us
suppose that we have a child before us. What is the condition
primary to our devotion to this child? What is the first
condition to our educating the child? It is that we take an
interest in it. There is something unhealthy or abnormal in
the human soul if a person withdraws himself from something
in which he takes an interest. It will more and more be
recognised that the impulse of interest is particularly
valuable in the moral sense the further we advance to the
actual foundations of morality and do not stop at the mere
preaching of morals. Our inner powers are also called forth
as regards mankind when we extend our interests, when we are
able to transpose ourselves with understanding into beings
and entities.

Even sympathy
is awakened in the right manner if we take an interest in a
being; and if, as anthroposophists, we set ourselves the task
of extending our interests more and more and of widening our
mental horizon, this will promote the universal brotherhood
of mankind. Progress is not gained by the mere preaching of
universal love, but by the extension of our interests further
and further, so that we interest ourselves more and more in
souls with widely different characters, racial and national
peculiarities, with widely different temperaments, and
holding widely differing religious and philosophical views,
and approach them with understanding. Right interest, right
understanding, calls forth from the soul the right moral
actions.

Here also we
must hold the balance between two extremes. One extreme is
apathy which passes everything by and occasions great moral
mischief in the world. An apathetic person only lives in
himself, obstinately insisting on his own principles and
saying: This is my standpoint. In a moral sense this
insistence upon a standpoint is always bad. The essential
thing is for us to keep our eyes open, and be alive to all
that surrounds us. Apathy separates us from the world, while
interest unites us with it. The world loses us through
apathy: in this direction we become immoral. Thus we see that
apathy and lack of interest in the world are morally evil in
the highest degree.

Anthroposophy
is something which makes the mind ever more active, helps us
to think with greater readiness of what is spiritual and to
receive it into our selves. Just as it is true that warmth
comes from the fire when we light a stove, so it is true that
interest in humanity and the world comes when we study
spiritual science. Wisdom is the fuel for interest and we may
say, although this may perhaps not be evident without further
explanation, that Anthroposophy arouses this interest in us
when we study those more remote subjects, the teachings
concerning the evolutionary stages through Saturn, Sun and
Moon, and the meaning of Karma and so on. It really comes
about that interest is produced as the result of
anthroposophical knowledge; while from materialistic
knowledge comes something which in a radical manner must be
described as apathy and which, if it alone were to hold sway,
in the world would, of necessity, do untold harm.

See how many
people go through the world and meet this or that person, but
really do not get to know him, for they are quite shut up in
themselves. How often do we find that two people have been
friends for a long time and then suddenly there comes a
rupture. This is because the friendship had a materialistic
foundation and only after the lapse of time did they discover
that they were mutually unsympathetic. At the present time
very few people have the “hearing” ear for that
which speaks from man to man; but Anthroposophy should bring
about an expansion of our perceptions, so that we shall gain
a “seeing” eye and an open mind for all that is
human around us and so we shall not go through the world
apathetically, but with true interest.

We also avoid
the other extreme by distinguishing between true and false
enthusiasms or interests, and thus observe the happy mean.
Immediately to throw oneself, as it were, into the arms of
each person we meet is to lose oneself passionately in the
person; that is not true interest. If we do this, we lose
ourselves to the world. Through apathy the world loses us;
through intoxicating passion we lose ourselves to the world.
But through healthy, devoted interest we stand morally firm
in the centre, in the state of balance.

In the third
post-Atlantean age of civilisation, that is, in the
Chaldaic-Egyptian age, there still existed in a large part of
humanity on earth, a certain power to hold the balance
between apathy and the passionate intoxicating devotion to
the world; and it is this, which in ancient times, and also
by Plato and Aristotle, was called wisdom. But people looked
upon this wisdom as the gift of super-human beings, for up to
that time the ancient impulse of wisdom was active.
Therefore, from this point of view, especially relating to
moral impulses, we may call the third post-Atlantean age, the
age of instinctive wisdom. You will perceive the truth of
what was said last year, though with a different intention,
in the Copenhagen lectures on
The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind.
In those lectures we showed how, in the third
post-Atlantean age, mankind was closer to the divine
spiritual powers. And that which drew mankind closer to the
divine spiritual powers, was instinctive wisdom.

Thus it was a
gift of the gods to find at that time the happy mean in
action, between apathy and sensuous passionate devotion. The
complete intermingling of humanity which came about in the
fourth age of post-humanity which came about the the fourth
age of post-Atlantean development through the migrations of
various peoples, did not yet exist. Mankind was still divided
into smaller peoples and tribes. Their interests were wisely
regulated by nature, and were so far active that the right
moral impulses could penetrate; and on the other hand,
through the existence of blood kinsmanship in the tribe, an
obstacle was placed in the way of sensual passion. Even today
one cannot fail to observe the interest that is taken in
blood relationship and ancestry, but in this there is not
what is called sensuous passion. As people were gathered
together in relatively small tracts of country in the
Egypto-Chaldaic age, the wise and happy mean was easily
found.

But the idea
of the progressive development of humanity is that,
which originally was instinctive, which was only spiritual,
shall gradually disappear and that man shall become
independent of the divine spiritual powers. Hence we see that
even in the fourth post-Atlantean age, the Graeco-Latin age,
not only the philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, but also
public opinion in Greece, considered wisdom as something
which must be gained, as something which is no longer the
gift of the gods, but after which man must strive. According
to Plato, the first virtue is wisdom, and according to him,
he who does not strive after wisdom is immoral.

We are now in
the fifth post-Atlantean age. We are still far from the time
when the wisdom instinctively implanted in humanity as a
divine impulse, will be raised into consciousness. Hence in
our age people are liable to err in both the directions we
have mentioned, and it is now particularly necessary that the
great dangers to be found at this point should be
counteracted by a spiritual conception of the world, so that
what man once possessed as instinctive wisdom may now become
conscious wisdom. The Anthroposophical Movement is to
contribute to this end.

The gods once
gave wisdom to the unconscious human soul, so that it
possessed this wisdom instinctively, whereas now we have
first to learn the truths about the cosmos and about human
evolution. The ancient customs were also fashioned after the
thoughts of the gods.

We have the
right view of Anthroposophy when we look upon it as the
investigations of the thoughts of the gods. In former times
these flowed instinctively into man, but now we have to
investigate them, to make the knowledge of them our own. In
this sense Anthroposophy must be sacred to us; we must be
able to consider reverently that the ideas imparted to us are
really something divine, and something which we human beings
are allowed to think and reflect upon as the divine thoughts
according to which the world has been ordered. When
Anthroposophy stands in this aspect to us, we can then
consider it the knowledge it imparts in such a way that we
understand that it has been given us so as to enable us to
fulfil our mission. Mighty truths are made known to us, when
we study what we have been told concerning the evolutions of
Saturn, Sun and Moon, concerning reincarnation, and the
development of the various races, etc. But we only assume the
right attitude towards it when we say: The thoughts we seek
are the thoughts wherewith the gods have guided evolution. We
think the evolution of the gods. If we understand this
correctly we are overwhelmed by something that is deeply
moral. This is inevitable. Then we say: In ancient times man
had instinctive wisdom from the gods, who gave him the wisdom
according to which they fashioned the world, and morality
thus became possible. But through Anthroposophy we now
acquire this wisdom consciously. Therefore we may also trust
that in us it shall be transformed into moral impulses, so
that we do not merely receive anthroposophical wisdom, but a
moral stimulus as well.

Now into what
sort of moral impulses will the wisdom acquired through
Anthroposophy be transformed? We must here touch upon a point
whose development the anthroposophist can foresee, the
profound moral significance and moral weight of which he even
ought to foresee, a point of development which is far removed
from what is customary at the present time, which is what
Plato called the ideal of “wisdom”. He named it
with a word which was in common use when man still possessed
the ancient wisdom, and it would be well to replace this by
the word truth, for as we have now become more
individual, we have withdrawn ourselves from the divine, and
must therefore strive back to it. We must learn to feel the
full weight and meaning of the word “truth” and
this in a moral sense will be a result of anthroposophical
thought and feeling. Anthroposophists must understand how
important it is to be filled with the moral element of truth
in an age when materialism has advanced so far that one may
indeed still speak of truth, but when the general life and
understanding is far removed from perceiving what is right in
this direction. Nor can this be otherwise at the present
time, as owing to a certain Duality acquired by modern life,
truth is something which must, to a great extent, be lacking
in the understanding of the day. I ask what does a man feel
today when in the newspapers or some other printed matter he
finds certain information, and afterwards it transpires that
it is untrue? I seriously ask you to ponder over this. One
cannot say that it happens in every case, but one must assert
that it probably happens in every fourth case. Untruthfulness
has everywhere become a quality of the age; it is impossible
to describe truth as a characteristic of our times.

For instance,
take a man whom you know to have written or said something
false, and place the facts before him. As a rule, you will
find that he does not feel such a thing to be wrong. He will
immediately make the excuse: “But I said it in good
faith.” Anthroposophists must not consider it moral
when a person says it is merely incorrect what he has said in
good faith. People will learn to understand more and more,
that they must first ascertain that what they assert really
happened. No man should make a statement, or impart anything
to another until he has exhausted every means to ascertain
the truth of his assertions; and it is only when he
recognises this obligation that he can feel the moral element
of truth. And then when someone has either written or said
something that is incorrect, he will no longer say: “I
thought it was so, I said it in good faith,” for he
will learn that it is his duty to express not merely what he
thinks is right, but it is also his duty to say only what is
true, and correct. To this end a radical change must
gradually come about in our life of thought. The speed of
travel, the lust of sensation on the part of man, everything
that comes with a materialistic age, is opposed to truth. In
the sphere of morality, Anthroposophy should be a teacher of
the duty of truth.

My business
today is not to say how far truth has been already realised
in the Anthroposophical Society, but to show that what I have
said must be a principle, a lofty anthroposophical ideal. The
moral evolution within the movement will have enough to do,
if the moral ideal of truth is thought, felt and perceived in
all directions, for this ideal must be what the virtue of the
sentient-soul of man produces in the right way.

The second
part of the soul of which we have to speak in Anthroposophy
is what we usually call the mind-soul, or intellectual-soul,
or the soul of cultivated feeling. You know that it developed
especially in the fourth post-Atlantean, or Graeco-Latin age.
The virtue which is the particular emblem for this part of
the soul is bravery, valour and courage; we have already
dwelt on this many times, and also on the fact that
foolhardiness and cowardice are its extremes. Courage,
bravery and valour is the mean between foolhardiness and
cowardice. The German word gemut expresses in the
sound of the word that it is related to this. The word
gemut indicates the mid-part of the human soul, the
part that is mutvoll, full of mut, Courage,
strength and force.

This was the
second, the middle virtue of Plato and Aristotle. It is that
virtue which in the fourth post-Atlantean age still existed
in man as a divine gift, while “wisdom” was
really only instinctive in the third. Instinctive valour and
bravery existed as a gift of the gods (you may gather this
from the first lecture) among the people who, in the fourth
age, met the expansion of Christianity to the north. They
show that among them valour was still a gift of the gods.
Among the Chaldean's wisdom, the wise penetration into the
secrets of the starry world, existed as a divine gift, as
something inspired. Among the people of the fourth
post-Atlantean age, there existed valour and bravery,
especially among the Greeks and Romans, but it existed also
among the peoples whose work it became to spread
Christianity. This instinctive valour was lost later than
instinctive wisdom.

If we look
around us now in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we see that,
as regards valour and bravery, we are in the same position in
respect of the Greeks as the Greeks were to the Chaldeans and
Egyptians in regard to wisdom. We look back to what was a
divine gift in the age immediately preceding ours, and in a
certain way we may strive for it again. However, the two
previous lectures have shown us, that in connection with this
effort a certain transformation must take place. We have seen
the transformation in Francis of Assisi of that divine gift
which manifested itself as bravery and valour. We saw that
the transformation came about as the result of an inner moral
force which in our last lecture we found to be the force of
the Christ-impulse; the transformation of valour and bravery
into “true love.” But this true love must be
guided by another virtue, by the interest in the being to
whom we turn our love. In his “Timon of Athens”,
Shakespeare shows how love, or warmth of heart, causes harm,
when it is passionately manifested; when it appears merely as
a quality of human nature without being guided by wisdom and
truth. A man is described, who gave freely of his
possessions, who squandered his living in all directions.
Liberality is a virtue, but Shakespeare also shows us that
nothing but parasites are produced by what is squandered.

Just as
ancient valour and bravery were guided from the Mysteries by
the European Brahmins - those wise leaders who kept
themselves hidden in the background — so also in human
nature this virtue must accord with and be guided by
interest. Interest, which connects us with the external world
in the right way, must lead and guide us when, with our love,
we turn to the world. Fundamentally this may be seen from the
characteristic and striking example of Francis of Assisi. The
sympathy he expressed was not obtrusive or offensive. Those
who overwhelm others with their sympathy are by no means
always actuated by the right moral impulses. And how many
there are who will not receive anything that is given out of
sympathy. But to approach another with understanding is not
offensive. Under some circumstances a person must needs
refuse to be sympathized with; but the attempt to understand
his nature is something to which no reasonable person can
object. Hence also the attitude of another person cannot be
blamed or condemned if his actions are determined by this
principle.

It is
understanding which can guide us with respect to this second
virtue: love. It is that which, through the
Christ-impulse, has become the special virtue of the
mind-soul or intellectual-soul; it is the virtue which may be
described as human love accompanied by human understanding.
Sympathy is the virtue which in the future will produce the
most beautiful and glorious fruits in human social life, and,
in one who rightly understands the Christ-impulse, this
sympathy and this love will originate quite naturally, it
will develop into feeling. It is exactly through the
anthroposophical understanding of the Christ-impulse that it
will become feeling. Through the Mystery of Golgotha Christ
descended into earthly evolution; His impulses, His
activities are here now, they are everywhere. Why did He
descend to this earth? In order that through what He has to
give to the world, evolution may go forward in the right way.
Now that the Christ-impulse is in the world, if through what
is immoral, if through lack of interest in our fellow-men, we
destroy something, then we take away a portion of the world
into which the Christ-impulse has flowed. Thus, because the
Christ-impulse is now here, we directly destroy something of
it. But if we give to the world what can be given to it
through virtue, which is creative, we build. We build through
self-surrender. It is not without reason that it has often
been said, that Christ was first crucified on Golgotha, but
that He is crucified again and again through the deeds of
man. Since Christ has entered into the Earth development
through the deed upon Golgotha, we by our immoral deeds, by
our unkindness and lack of interest, add to the sorrow and
pain inflicted upon Him. Therefore it has been said again and
again: Christ is crucified anew as long as immorality,
unkindness and lack of interest exist. Since the
Christ-impulse has permeated the world, it is this which is
made to suffer.

Just as it is
true that through evil, which is destructive, we withdraw
something from the Christ-impulse and continue the
crucifixion upon Golgotha, it is also true that when we act
out of love, in all cases where we use love, we add to the
Christ-impulse, we help to bring it to life. “Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me”. This is the most
significant statement of love, and this statement must become
the most profound moral impulse. If it is once
anthroposophically understood. We do this when with
understanding we confront our fellow-men and offer them
something in our actions, our virtue, our conduct towards
them which is conditioned by our understanding of their
nature. Our attitude towards our fellow-men is our attitude
towards the Christ-impulse itself.

We have a
powerful moral impulse, something which is a foundation for
morals, when we feel that the Mystery of Golgotha was
accomplished for all men, and that an impulse has thence
spread abroad throughout the whole world. When you are
dealing with your fellow-men, try to understand them in their
special characteristics of race, colour, nationality,
religious faith, philosophy, etc. If you meet them and do
this or that to them, you do it to Christ. Whatever you do to
men, in the present condition of the earth's evolution, you
do to Christ. This statement: "What thou hast done to My
brother thou has done unto Me," will immediately become a
mighty moral impulse to the man who understands the
fundamental significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. So that
we may say: Whereas, on the one hand, the gods of
pre-Christian times gave instinctive wisdom to man,
instinctive valour and bravery, so, on the other hand, love
streams down from the symbol of the cross, the love which is
based upon the interest of human beings in one another.

Thereby the
Christ-impulse will work powerfully in the world. On the day
when it comes about that the Brahmin not only loves and
understands the Brahmin, the Pariah the Pariah - the Jew the
Jew, and the Christian the Christian; but when the Jew
understands the Christian, the Pariah the Brahmin, the
American the Asiatic, as man and puts himself in his place,
then one will know how deeply it is felt in a Christian way
when we say: “All men must feel themselves to be
brothers, no matter what their religious creed may be.”
We ought to consider what otherwise binds us as being of
little value. Father, mother, brother, sister, consider
merely as such, even one's own life one ought to value less
than that which speaks from one human soul to the other. He
who, in this sense, does not regard as base all that impairs
the connection with the Christ-Impulse cannot be Christ's
disciple. The Christ-impulse balances and compensates human
differences. Christ's disciple is one who regards mere human
distinctions as being of little account, and clings to the
impulse of love streaming forth from the Mystery of Golgotha,
which in this respect we perceive as a renewal of what was
given to mankind as original virtue.

We have now
but to consider what may be spoken of as the virtue of the
Consciousness or Spiritual-Soul. When we consider the fourth
post-Atlantean age, we find that "Temperance or Moderation"
was still instinctive. Plato and Aristotle called it the
chief virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Again they comprehended
it as a state of balance, as the mean of what exists in the
Spiritual-Soul. The Spiritual-Soul consists in man's becoming
conscious of the external world through his body. The sense
body is primarily the instrument of the Spiritual-Soul, and
it is also the sense body through which man arrives at
self-consciousness.

Therefore the
sense-body of man must be preserved. It if were not preserved
for the mission of the earth, then that mission could not be
fulfilled. But here also there is a limit. If a man only used
all the forces he possessed in order to enjoy himself, he
would shut himself up in himself, and the world would lose
him. The man who merely enjoys himself, who uses all his
forces merely to give himself pleasure, cuts himself off from
the world - so thought Plato and Aristotle - the world loses
him. And he who denies himself everything renders himself
weaker and weaker, and is finally laid hold of by the
external world-process, and is crushed by the outer world.
For he who goes beyond the forces appropriate to him as man,
he who goes to excess, is laid hold of by the world-process
and is absorbed by it.

Thus what man
has developed for the building up of the Spiritual-soul can
be dissolved, so that he comes into the position of losing
the world. “Temperance” or
“Moderation” is the virtue which enables man to
avoid these extremes. Temperance implies neither asceticism
nor gluttony, but the happy mean between these two; and this
is the virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Regarding this virtue we
we have not yet progressed beyond the instinctive standpoint.
A little reflection will teach you that, on the whole, people
are very much given to sampling the two extremes, they swing
to and fro between them. Leaving out of account the few who
at the present day endeavour to gain clear views on this
subject, you will find that the majority of people live very
much after a particular pattern. In Central Europe this is
often described by saying: There are people in Berlin who eat
and drink to excess the entire winter, and then in summer
they go to Carlsbad in order to remove the ill effects
produced by months of intemperance, thus going from one
extreme to the other. Here you have the weighing of the scale
first to one side and then to the other. This is a radical
case. It is vary evident that though the foregoing is
extreme, and not universal to any great extent, still the
oscillation between enjoyment and deprivation exists
everywhere. People themselves observe that there is excess on
one side, and they get the physicians to prescribe a
so-called lowering system of cure, that is, the other
extreme, in order that the ill effects may be repaired.

From this it
will be seen that in this respect people are still in an
instinctive condition, and that which we desire to express is
that there is still an instinctive feeling, which is a kind
of divine gift, not to go too far in one direction of
another. But just as the other instinctive Qualities of man
were lost, these, too, will be lost with the transition from
the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean age. This quality which
is still possessed as a natural tendency will be lost; and
now you will be able to judge how much anthroposophical
teaching and feeling will have to contribute in order
gradually to develop consciousness in regard to these
things.

At the
present time there are very few, even developed
anthroposophists, who see clearly that Anthroposophy provides
the means to gain the right consciousness in this realm also.
When Anthroposophy is able to bring more weight to bear in
this direction, then will appear what I can only describe in
the following way: people will gradually long more and more
for great spiritual truths. Although Anthroposophy is still
scorned today, it will not always be so. It will spread, and
overcome all its opponents, and everything else still
opposing it, and anthroposophists will not be satisfied by
merely preaching universal love. It will be understood that
one cannot acquire Anthroposophy in one day, any more than a
person can take sufficient nourishment in one day to last the
whole of his life. Anthroposophy has to be acquired ever more
and more. It will come to pass that in the Anthroposophical
Movement it will not be so often stated that these are our
principles, and if we have these principles, then we are
anthroposophists; for the feeling and experience of the
living element in anthroposophy will become life and
experience, and will extend more and more.

Moreover, let
us consider what happens by people mentally working upon the
particular thoughts, the particular feelings and impulses
which come from anthroposophical wisdom. We all know that
anthroposophists can never have a materialistic view of the
world, they have exactly the opposite. But he who says the
following is a materialistic thinker: “When one thinks,
a movement of the molecules or atoms of the brain takes
place, and it is because of this movement that one has
thought. Thought proceeds from the brain somewhat like a thin
smoke, or it is something like the flame from a
candle.” Such is the materialistic view. The
anthroposophical view is the opposite. In the latter it is
the thought, the experience in the soul which sets the brain
and nervous system in motion. The way in which our brain
moves depends upon what thoughts we think. This is exactly
the opposite of what is said by the materialist. If you wish
to know how the brain of a person is constituted, you must
inquire onto what thoughts he has, for just as the printed
characters of a book are nothing else than the consequence of
thoughts, so the movements in the brain are nothing else than
the consequence of thoughts.

Must we not
then say that the brain will be differently affected when it
is filled with anthroposophical thoughts than it will be in a
society which plays cards? Different processes are at work in
your minds when you follow anthroposophical thoughts from
when you are in a company of card players, or see the
pictures in a cinematograph theatre, for in the human
organism nothing is isolated or stands alone. Everything is
connected; one part acts and reacts on another. Thoughts act
upon the brain and nervous system, and the latter is
connected with the whole organism, and although many people
may not yet be aware of it, when the hereditary
characteristics still hidden in the body are conquered, the
following will come about. The thoughts will be communicated
from the brain to the stomach, and the result will be that
things that are pleasant to people's taste today will no
longer taste good to those who have received anthroposophical
thoughts. The thoughts which anthroposophists have received
are divine thoughts. They act upon the whole organism in such
a manner that it will prefer to taste what is good for it.
Man will smell and perceive as unsympathetic what does not
suit him an unique perspective, one which may perhaps be
called materialistic, but is exactly the reverse.

This kind of
appetite will come as a consequence of anthroposophical work;
you will like one thing and prefer it at meals, dislike
another and not wish to eat it. You may judge for yourselves
when you notice that perhaps you now have an aversion to
things, which before your anthroposophical days you did not
possess. This will become more and more general when man
works selflessly at his higher development, so that the world
may receive what is right from him. One must not, however,
play hide-and-seek with the words “selfishness”
and “egoism.” These words may very easily be
misused. It is not altogether selfless when someone says:
“I shall only be busy in the world and for the world;
what does it matter about my own spiritual development? I
shall only work, not strive egoistically!” It is not
egoism when a person undergoes a higher development, because
he thereby fits himself more fully to bear an active part in
the furtherance of the world development. If a person
neglects his own further development, he renders himself
useless to the world, he withdraws his force from it. We must
do the right thing in this respect as well, in order to
develop in ourselves what the Deity had in view for us.

Thus, through
Anthroposophy a human race, or rather, a nucleus of humanity
will be developed, which perceives temperance as a guiding
ideal not merely instinctively, but which has a conscious
sympathy for what makes man in a worthy way into a useful
part of the world's constitution, and a conscious
disinclination for all that mars man as a part in the
universal order.

Thus we see
that also in that which is produced in man himself, there are
moral impulses, and we find what we may call practical wisdom
as transformed temperance. The ideal of practical wisdom
which is to be taken into consideration for the next, the
sixth post-Atlantean age, will be the ideal virtue which
Plato calls “justice,” and that is the harmonious
accord of these virtues. As in humanity the virtues have
altered to some extent, so what was looked upon as virtue in
pre-Christian times has also changed. A single virtue such as
this, which harmonises the others, did not exist at that
time. The harmony of the virtues stands before the mental
vision of humanity as an ideal of the most distant future. We
have seen that the moral impulse of bravery has been changed
to love. We have also seen that wisdom has become truth. To
begin with, truth is a virtue which places man in a just and
worthy manner in external life. But if we wish to arrive at
truthfulness regarding spiritual things, how then can we
arrange it in relation to those things? We acquire
truthfulness, we gain the virtue of the Sentient-Soul through
a right and appropriate interest, through right
understanding. Now what is this interest, with regard to the
spiritual world? If we wish to bring the physical world and
especially man before us, we must open ourselves towards him,
we must have a seeing eye for his nature. How do we obtain
this seeing-eye with reference to the spiritual world? We
gain it by developing a particular kind of feeling, that
which appeared at a time when the old instinctive wisdom had
sunk into the depths of the soul's life. This type of feeling
was often described by the Greeks in the words: “All
philosophical thought begins with wonder.” Something
essentially moral is said when we say that our relationship
to the super-sensible world commences with wonder. The savage,
uncultivated human being, is but little affected by the great
phenomena of the world. It is through mental development that
man comes to find riddles in the phenomena of everyday life,
and to perceive that there is something spiritual at the back
of them. It is wonder that directs our souls up to the
spiritual sphere in order that we may penetrate to the
knowledge of that world; and we can only arrive at this
knowledge when our soul is attracted by the phenomena which
it is possible to investigate. It is this attraction which
gives rise to wonder, astonishment and faith. It is always
wonder and amazement which direct us to what is
super-sensible, and at the same time, it is what one usually
describes as faith. Faith, wonder and amazement are the three
forces of the soul which lead us beyond the ordinary
world.

When we
contemplate man with wonder and amazement, we try to
understand him; by understanding his nature we attain to
brotherhood, and we shall best realise this by approaching
the human being with reverence. We shall then see that
reverence is something with which we must approach every
human being and if we have this attitude, we shall become
more and more truthful. Truth will become something by which
we shall be bound by duty. Once we perceive it, the
super-sensible world becomes something towards which we
incline, and through knowledge we shall attain to the
super-sensible wisdom which has already sunk into the
sub-conscious depths of the soul. Only after super-sensible
wisdom had disappeared do we find the statement that
“philosophy commences with wonder and amazement.”
This statement will make it clear that wonder only appeared
in evolution in the age when the Christ-impulse had come into
the world.

It has
already been stated that the second virtue is love. Let us
now consider what we have described as instinctive temperance
for the present time, and as practical wisdom of life for the
future. Man confronts himself in these virtues. Through the
deeds he performs in the world, he acts in such a way that he
guards himself, as it were; therefore it is necessary that he
should obtain an objective standard of values.

We now see
something appear which develops more and more, and which I
have often spoken of in other connections, something which
first appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean age, namely the
Greek. It can be shown that in the old Greek dramas, for
instance in Aeschylus, the Furies play a role which in
Euripides is transformed into conscience. From this we see
that in very ancient times what we call conscience did not
exist at all. Conscience is something that exists as a
standard for our own actions when we go too far in our
demands, when we seek our own gain too much. It acts as a
standard placed between our sympathies and antipathies.

With this we
attain to something which is more objective which, compared
with the virtues of truth, love and practical wisdom, acts in
a much more objective, or outward manner. Love here stands in
the middle, and acts as something which has to fill and
regulate all life, also all social life. In the same way it
acts as the regulator of all that man has developed as inner
impulse. But that which he has developed as truth will
manifest itself as the belief in super-sensible knowledge.
Life-wisdom, that which originates in ourselves, we must feel
as a divine spiritual regulator which, like conscience, leads
securely along the true middle course. If we had time it
would be very easy to answer the various objections which
might be raised at this point. But we shall only consider
one, for example, the objection to the assertion that
conscience and wonder are qualities which have only gradually
developed in humanity, whereas they are really eternal. But
this they are not. He who says that they are eternal
qualities in human nature only shows thereby that he does not
know the conditions attached to them.

As time goes
on it will be found more and more that in ancient times Man
had not as yet descended so far to the physical plane, but
was still more closely connected with divine impulses, and
that he was in a condition which he will again consciously
strive to reach when he is ruled more by truth, love and the
art of life in regard to the physical plane, and when in
regard to spiritual knowledge he is actuated by faith in the
super-sensible world. It is not necessarily the case that
faith will directly lead into that world, but it will at
length be transferred into super-sensible knowledge.
Conscience is that which shall set to work as a regulator in
the Consciousness or Spiritual-Soul. Faith, love, conscience;
these three stars shall be the three moral forces which shall
enter into human souls particularly through Anthroposophy.
The moral perspective of the future can only be disclosed to
those who think of these three virtues being ever more
increased. Anthroposophy will place moral life in the light
of these virtues, which will be the constructive forces of
the future.

Before
closing our observations, there is one point which must be
considered. I shall only touch upon the subject, for it would
be impossible to prove without giving many lectures. The
Christ-impulse entered human evolution through the Mystery of
Golgotha. We know that at that time a human organism
consisting of physical, etheric, and astral bodies received
the Ego-impulse or “I” from above, as the
Christ-impulse. It was this Christ-impulse which was received
by the earth and which flowed into earthly evolution. It was
now in it as the ego of Christ. We know further that the
physical body, etheric body and astral body remained with
Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ-impulse was within as the ego.
At Golgotha, Jesus separated from the Christ-impulse, which
then flowed into the earth development. The evolution of this
impulse signifies the evolution of the earth itself.

Earnestly
consider certain things which are very often repeated in
order that they may be more easily understood. As we have
often heard, the world is maya or illusion, but man must
gradually penetrate to the truth, the reality of this
external world. The earth development fundamentally consists
in all the external things which have been formed in the
first half of the earth's development being dissolved in the
second half, in which we now are, so that all that we see
externally, physically, shall separate from human development
just as the physical body of a human being falls away. One
might ask: What will then be left? And the answer is: The
forces which are embodied in man as real forces through the
process of the development of humanity on the earth, and the
most real impulse in it is that which has come into earthly
evolution through the Christ-impulse. But this Christ-impulse
at first, finds nothing with which it can clothe itself.
Therefore it has to obtain a covering through the further
development of the earth; and when this is concluded, the
fully developed Christ shall be the final man - as Adam was
the first - around whom humanity in its multiplicity has
grouped itself.

In the words:
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me,” is
contained a very significant hint. That has been done for
Christ? The actions performed in accordance with the
Christ-impulse under the influence of conscience, under the
influence of faith and according to knowledge, are developed
out of the earth-life up to that time, and as, through his
actions and his moral attitude a person gives something to
his brethren, he gives at the same time to Christ. This
should be taken as a percept: All the forces we develop, all
acts of faith and trust, all acts performed as the result of
wonder, are — because we give it at the same time to
the Christ-Ego — something which closes like a covering
round the Christ and may be compared with the astral body of
man.

We form the
astral body for the Christ-Ego-impulse by all the moral
activities of wonder, trust, reverence and faith, in short,
all that paves the way to super-sensible knowledge. Through
all these activities we foster love. This is quite in
accordance with the statement we quoted: “That ye have
done to one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done
it unto Me.”

We form the
etheric body for Christ through our deeds of love, and
through our actions in the world which we do through the
impulses of conscience we form for the Christ-impulse that
which corresponds to the physical body of man. When the earth
has reached its goal, when man understands the right moral
impulses through which all that is good is done, then shall
be perfected that which came as an Ego or “I”
into human development through the Mystery of Golgotha as the
Christ-impulse. It shall then be enveloped by an astral body
which is formed through faith, through all the deeds of
wonder and amazement on the part of man. It shall be
enveloped by something which is like an etheric body which is
formed through deeds of love; and by something which envelops
it like a physical body, formed through the deeds of
conscience.

Thus the
future evolution of humanity shall be accomplished through
the co-operation of the moral impulses of man with the
Christ-impulse. We see humanity in perspective like a great
organic structure. When people build their actions into this
great organism, and through their own deeds form their
impulses around it like a covering, they shall then lay the
foundations, in the course of earthly evolution, for a great
community, which can be permeated and pervaded through and
through by the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see
that morals need not be preached, but they can indeed be
founded by showing facts that have really happened and do
still happen, confirming what is felt by persons with special
mental endowments. It should make a noteworthy impression
upon us if we bear in mind how, at the time when he lost his
friend, Duke Charles Augustus, Goethe wrote many things in a
long letter at Weimar, and then on the same day — it
was in the year 1828, three-and-a-half years before his own
death, and almost at the end of his life — he wrote a
very remarkable sentence in his diary: “The whole
reasonable world may be considered as a great immortal
individual which uninterruptedly brings about what is
necessary and thereby makes itself master even over
chance.” How could such a thought become more concrete
than by our imagining this individual active among us, and by
thinking of ourselves as being united with him in his work?
Through the Mystery of Golgotha the greater individual
entered into human development, and, when people
intentionally direct their lives in the way we have just
described, they shall build up a covering round the
Christ-impulse, so that around this Being there shall be
formed something which is like a covering around a
kernel.

Much more
could be said about virtue from the standpoint of
Anthroposophy. Long and important considerations could be
entered into concerning truth and its connections with karma,
for through Anthroposophy the idea of karma will have entered
into human evolution more and more. Man will have to learn
there by gradually so to consider and order his life that his
virtues correspond with karma. Through the idea of karma man
must also learn to recognise that he is under an obligation
not to disown his former deeds by his later ones. A certain
feeling of responsibility in life, a readiness to take upon
ourselves the results of what we have done, has yet to know
itself as a result of human evolution. How far removed man
still is from this ideal we see when we consider him more
closely. That man develops by the acts he has committed is a
well-know fact. The fact that a person feels responsible for
what he has done, the fact that he consciously accepts the
idea of karma, is something which might also be a subject for
study. But you will find much more for yourselves by
following the lines suggested in these three lectures; you
will find how fruitful these ideas are if you carry them
further. As we shall live for the remainder of the
earth-development in repeated incarnations, it is our task to
rectify all the mistakes we have made respecting the virtues
described, by inclining to one side or the other, to change
them by shaping them of our own free will, so that the
balance, the mean, may come and thus the goal be gradually
attained which has been described as the formation of the
coverings for the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see
before us not merely an abstract ideal of universal
brotherhood, which indeed may also receive a strong impulse
if we lay Anthroposophy at the foundation, but we see that
there is something real in our earthly evolution, we see that
there is in it an impulse which came on to the world through
the Mystery of Golgotha; and we also feel ourselves under the
necessity so to work upon the Sentient-Soul, the
Intellectual-Soul and the Spiritual-Soul, that this ideal
shall be actualised, and that we shall be united with Him as
with a great immortal individual. The thought that the
possibility of further evolution, the power to fulfil the
earth mission, lies in man's forming one whole with this
great individual, is realised in the second principle:
“What you do as if it were born from you alone, pushes
you away and separates you from the great individual, you
thereby destroy something; but what you do to build up this
great immortal individual in the way above described, that
you do towards the further development, the progressive life
of the whole organism of the world.”

We only
require to place these two thoughts before us, in order to
see that their effect is not only to preach morals, but to
give them a basis. For the thought: “Through your
actions you are destroying what you ought to build up,”
is terrible and fearful, keeping down all opposing desires.
But the thought: “You are building up this immortal
individual; you are making yourself into a part of this
immortal individual,” fires one to good deeds, to
strong moral impulses. In this way morals are not only
preached, but we are lead to thoughts which themselves may be
moral impulses, to thoughts which are able to found
morals.

The more the
truth is cultivated, the more rapidly shall Anthroposophy and
anthroposophical feeling develop ethics such as these. And it
has been my task to express this in these lectures.
Naturally, many things have only been lightly touched upon,
but you can develop further in your own minds many ideas
which have been broached. In this way we shall be drawn more
closely together all over the earth. When we meet together
— as we have done on this occasion as anthroposophists
of Northern and Central Europe — to consider these
subjects, and when we allow the thoughts roused in us at
gatherings such as this to echo and re-echo through us, we
shall in this way best realise that Anthroposophy is to
provide the foundation — even at the present time
— for true spiritual life. And when we have to part
again we know that it is in our anthroposophical thoughts
that we are most at one, and this knowledge is also a moral
stimulus. To know that we are united by the same ideals with
people who, as a rule, are widely separated from one another
in space, but with whom we may meet on special occasions, is
a stronger moral stimulus than being always together.

That we
should think in this way of our gathering, that we should
thus understand our studies together, fills my soul,
especially at the close of these lectures, as something in
which I should like to express my farewell greeting to you,
and concerning which I am convinced that, when it is
understood in the true light, the anthroposophical life which
is developing will also be spiritually well founded. With
this thought and these feelings let us close our studies today.